Like the Movies

I wish missing you was like the movies
that I could fall delicately to the floor in a wave of white lace and tears
let the mascara run, but only for a moment
and then wipe it away, my cheeks the color of rose petals
as I stand up and face the frost-covered window pane
as if to signify a new beginning, a fresh flower blooming
breaking out of the ground in pastel radiance
in place of the old one, decaying and rancid,
void of its former glory. But
missing you isn't pretty,
isn't beautiful,
can't be romanticized with tender verse and dreamlike prose.
I can try to sing your name to the stars, see you in the sky,
forget that you're nowhere, imagine that you're with me
dance around my grief with soft, aching poetry.
Or I can try to forget you ever existed, move on,
live my own life, a new life without your smile always in the back of my mind. But
you seem to always return in the form of anger,
flames licking at the corner of my wildest dreams
because I imagined a life with you, many years of perfect summers
of your brown eyes and my blue nails and your soft voice erasing all my fears.
I imagined late July, over and over,
the cursed day I'd have to say goodbye, every year
the world blurry from the tears at the back of my eyes
as we exchanged our last hug, the sunshine turning our brown hair golden.
I imagined your face in the flicker of the campfire,
I imagined friendship bracelets and songs and crafts.
I didn't imagine crying in the dining hall when I found out you were gone,
I didn't imagine seeing so many faces staring at me with pity, none of them yours.
I didn't imagine never being able to see you again, feel your hug, hear your laugh.
I didn't imagine looking at all my friends, everyone
and wondering how they could possibly compare to you,
and I didn't imagine the pain, fresh and raw
every time I see your face on a computer screen, frozen forever in smiling photographs
above articles talking about what a great person you were, how nobody else is like you.
I never see this in the movies,
the sadness that resurfaces after two years
of knowing you were gone,
the wishing that I could've hugged you harder, imprinted your memory into my brain.
I never see this in the movies,
the inevitable crying every time you cross my mind,
mascara far past ruined, not fixed, not wiped away,
blackened tears rolling down my cheeks or trapped in my too-long eyelashes.
I wish missing you was like the movies
because maybe then I wouldn't even miss you anymore.